5-14 IAN Are There Too Many Potatoes

 When you have too much of a good thing, then that’s not good. Particularly when it’s perishable, as in a commodity…like potatoes. In recent months some potato farmers have had that little nightmare going on…it’s called high supply and low demand. I talked recently with Paul Patterson, an Agricultural Economist at the University of Idaho Extension, who said that last year the perfect storm blew in where there was an increase in supply and decrease in demand for potatoes and two of those together led to a much lower price. As of right now…:Well there has been some improvement on prices in the fresh market so that’s the good news but growers are still getting less than ½ their cost of production at this point in time. You don’t want to rain on their parade, it does help to show that things are starting to turn around but I also would argue that this should not give any grower an idea that they can go ahead and plant the acerage that they did the year before. We need to see more like a 10-15% reduction in acreage and if we don’t get that then they’re going to continue to have price problems with their 2010 crop.”

Knowing that agriculture is the largest driving force in Idaho’s economy and that potatoes make a huge impact in that we have to be very careful.